


le festin

by quidhitch



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, DCU
Genre: Bat Family, Established Relationship, Fluff, Gen, M/M, me making stuff up about wayne manor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-30
Updated: 2019-03-30
Packaged: 2019-12-26 22:23:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,344
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18291422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quidhitch/pseuds/quidhitch
Summary: “Night-before invite? A little tacky, don’t you think?” Clark teases, eyes lit up with mirth. “Did your other boyfriend cancel on you?”“Other girlfriend,” Bruce corrects primly.





	le festin

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [盛宴](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19485253) by [quidhitch](https://archiveofourown.org/users/quidhitch/pseuds/quidhitch), [sylvansue](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sylvansue/pseuds/sylvansue)



> i have absolutely nothing to say except yes the title is from the ratatouille theme song

Bruce returns from patrol to find Clark Kent stretched out in his bed wearing ridiculous plaid boxers, tube socks, and a t-shirt with a hole in the collar. He looks up when Bruce enters the room, lowering a beat-up copy of _Go Tell It On the Mountain._

“How did you get past Alfred?” Bruce inquires, mouth tipped in a half-amused smile as he shucks off his t-shirt.

Clark closes the book and places it on the bedside table, blinking up at Bruce with tired blue eyes. “Flew. Came through the window.”

A pause.

“You know,” Clark starts, in a voice that means absolutely no good. He gets up on his knees and walks toward the edge of the bed, pulling Bruce in by the hem of his sweatpants. Bruce lets himself be pulled.

“Most people have really high hopes for a six month anniversary. Like, moving in together or going on a trip together or meeting the family—“

“—you’ve already met my family—“

“I, however,” Clark presses on, smoothing his hands down Bruce’s bare chest, “would settle for my partner giving me the security code so I don’t have to sneak in through the only non-rigged window in the house like a horny teenager.”

“Been sitting on that one for a while, huh?”

“I figure it’s the next natural step after ‘I love you’.”

“I’ll think about it.”

Clark rolls his eyes in a pronounced, exaggerated manner, then leans in for a kiss, hands gently cupping Bruce’s face.

Bruce meant to shower, to pour himself a glass of scotch and go back downstairs to review security footage, but he loses himself in this instead and lets the pressure of Clark’s mouth chase away every last shadow hanging over his day.

“Come to bed,” Clark says simply. “There’s a prize waiting for you if you do.”

“A prize?” Bruce repeats, pushing Clark down onto the mattress and attempting to recapture his mouth.

Clark skirts it, wriggling out from underneath Bruce and flopping unceremoniously over the edge of the bed. When he surfaces again, there’s a pale blue pastry box between his hands.

He looks far too proud of himself as he flips open the lid, revealing what appears to be a cupcake in the shape of… a head. Bruce’s head, specifically, tucked under the cowl from his Batman uniform, a frosting frown outlined in dull pink.

“What is that?” Bruce asks, pressing a hand over his face to hide his smile.

“The batcake,” Clark says, thoroughly delighted. “It’s from a bakery in Metropolis! They make a wondercake, a supercake, an aquacake—“

“I get the concept, thank you.”

“They’re incredible. The attention to detail is fantastic, look, B, they even got your stubble,” Clark pauses, eyes fixed adoringly on the batcake as he swipes his pinky through a little stray frosting on the edge of the box. He pops it in his mouth and makes a brief, vaguely filthy sound at the back of his throat. “And they taste amazing, too. I’m doing a profile on the owners, it’s my latest puff piece for the Planet. We should go! Next time you’re in town.”

Bruce gently extracts the pastry box from Clark’s grip, places it on the bedside table, and pulls Clark back underneath him with an unceremonious yank, which would likely be unpleasant for anyone not in possession of super senses.

“Not hungry?” Clark asks innocently.

“Not for cake,” Bruce quips back, leaning down to kiss him again.

Clark pulls his legs apart, accommodating and polite, and Bruce would make a remark about midwestern manners if he didn’t have better things to do. He smooths his palms up Clark’s arms, tugging them above his head and pinning his wrists together with one hand. Clark isn’t exactly loud in bed, but Bruce’s utter and complete silence makes every soft, gasping noise an Event in and of itself.

Bruce breaks the kiss, leaning down drag his lips along Clark’s jaw. “Seven two oh five,” he says, pressing the words to Clark’s pulse.

“Huh?”

“Seven two oh five. That’s the security code, for the North Wing windows.”

Bruce can’t see his face, but he’d bet the entirety of the Wayne fortune on the claim that, right now, Clark is sporting a perfect, dopey Corn-Fed-Kansas smile.

 

* * *

 

“Sorry about your underwear.”

Clark lifts his head just slightly, propping his chin up on Bruce’s chest. He doesn’t need to sleep, but Bruce thinks he likes to, at least when he’s here. When it’s _After_. Emphasis intended.

“No, you’re not.”

“I am,” Bruce insists, brushing absently along Clark’s hairline, “were they the ones you got on sale? Twenty-four in a pack? You were so proud.”

Clark presses meanly at a bruise on Bruce’s rib cage, “I hate you.”

“Yes,” Bruce agrees, running a hand down the line of his spine, “clearly.”

Clark leans up to kiss him, soft and not at all urgent. He likes to do this— kiss for the sake of kissing, no going anywhere, no end in sight, an idle way to pass time until the sun starts to pull up over the smoky Gotham horizon. Bruce could never quite understand the point of it, but these days he gives in and indulges Clark in private moments when no one else is around to witness the minor cede in control.

“I’m having a party tomorrow,” Bruce says, apropos of nothing.

Clark arches an eyebrow, amused. “The Wayne Foundation Annual Gala? The social event of the season? The only charity-based gathering that effectively attracts every millionaire from the tri-state area? I’m aware.”

“You should come. Cover it for the society pages.”

“Night-before invite? A little tacky, don’t you think?” Clark teases, eyes lit up with mirth. “Did your other boyfriend cancel on you?”

“Other girlfriend,” Bruce corrects primly.

“Mhm,” Clark hums, pressing his lips against the corner of Bruce’s mouth in a not-quite kiss. “In any case, I can’t. Covering the Gotham-Metropolis high school football match. Peterson’s on the gala.”

“Guess I’ll just have to sleep with Peterson tomorrow night.”

“Guess so.”

 

* * *

 

When Dick was a kid, he used to love the Big Hoity Toity To-Do’s Bruce put on. The flutter of tablecloths, the clink of champagne glasses, the slew of women with sweeping necklines fawning over him and pinching his dimples. The attention was great, the food was amazing, and it was always kind of fun to watch Batman play at being Gotham’s Favorite Playboy: Bruce Wayne.

But as he’s gotten older and Bruce has continued to fill the halls of the manor with increasingly edgy children, he’s begun to think that _this—_ the getting ready—is by far the most entertaining portion of the evening.

“Alfred, I spilled jam on my collar— where are the magical stain pen things?”

“Master Tim, that’s the second shirt you’ve gone through in two hours. And the dessert is for the guests.”

“Why bother, Pennyworth? He is going to look like an unrefined plebe _anyways._ ”

“What? Is plebe a swear? Alfred, is that grounds for Swear Jar?”

“Plebe is not a swear, but it’s very unkind. And might I remind you that if either of you begins a physical brawl, we will have to spend _another_ fifteen minutes gelling down your hair.”

Damian spends a couple of long seconds scowling at Tim before gracefully dropping into a crouch next to Titus, diverting his full attention to straightening the dog’s bowtie. Much to Bruce’s chagrin, he insisted Titus be present and properly dressed for the evening’s festivities. It’s easy for all of them to forget how young he is. Dick thinks it’s nice, that he still does silly stuff like this from time to time to remind them.

He’d try to rumple Damian’s hair in affection but he knows there’s no quicker way to end up with a broken wrist.

“Tim,” Bruce grumbles. The pitch and volume suggest it is a Third Warning grumble, which means Tim has one more chance to listen before he gets a lecture. “Where is your tie?”

“You do the open shirt thing sometimes, too! Now that I have chest hair, I thought—”

“Twelve chest hairs,” Dick flops his head over the back of the couch, matching Tim’s scowl with a grin. “You have _exactly_ twelve chest hairs. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”

“Fuck off,” Tim says.

“ _That_ is grounds for Swear Jar,” Alfred reminds.

“Tim,” Bruce repeats, narrowing his eyes. “Button up your shirt and put on a tie. Any tie.”

“He’s _begging_ you,” Dick taunts.

Tim lets out a long-suffering groan and turns on his heel, ascending the stairs with possibly more aggressive footfalls than absolutely necessary. Bruce looks no less stressed for the victory and stiffly makes his way to the couch, lowering into the seat next to Dick in one smooth, carefully controlled movement.

“You’re my favorite,” he says. Dick pats his shoulder consolingly.

 

* * *

 

Most of the parties he crashes are much harder to get into, but, fortunately or unfortunately, Jason remembers every crook and cranny of Wayne Manor in gratingly vivid detail. Security’s pretty tight tonight, but Jason thinks not even Bruce is paranoid enough to monitor the window connected to the East Wing laundry rooms.

The _slight_ catch is— well.

Jason was fifteen, the last time he got in this way. He remembers it being… bigger. It’s really something he should’ve noted before inserting half his torso through the window and getting stuck, but that’s life, sometimes.

He’s trapped with his ass hanging out the building for a good ten minutes, contemplating the general misery of his life, before The Worst Possible Rescuer _Ever_ finds him.

“Todd,” Damian Wayne says, voice still startlingly sharp for a pre-pubescent. “What are you doing?”

“What does it look like?”

“Should I call father?” Damian prods, a threatening lilt to his voice.

Jason scowls. “Snitches get stitches.”

Damian makes his silly little ‘tt’ noise and Jason suppresses the urge to roll his eyes. “You are not in a position to be making threats.”

“And _you_ talk like you’re eighty-seven and it freaks me out. Come on. Help me through.”

Damian considers the proposition for several long seconds, arms still folded over his little chest. The dog next to Damian’s feet seems to be laughing. Logically, Jason knows dogs can’t laugh, but that’s still what it feels like.

“Say please,” Damian sniffs.

Jason groans.

 

* * *

 

Between giggling blondes and mindless praise and multiple people under thirty attempting to hand-feed him caviar, Bruce finds time to check the score on the Gotham-Metropolis football game.

18-3.

_Neck and neck, huh? Sure your piece will be a real page-turner._

His thumb hovers over send.

 

* * *

 

“Nice suit, little wing.”

“Thanks,” Jason says, glancing over his shoulder to flash Dick a sharp smile, “stole it.”

“Salary for outlaws not quite what you’re accustomed to?”

Jason’s mouth tips in a disgruntled frown, annoyed that he’s being patronized by a man whose apartment is littered wall to wall in moldy bowls of discount cereal. “Sweeter deal than the Bruce’s Bitch Tax you’re all still paying.”

“Swear jar,” Dick chides, a charming dimple pressed into his cheek. He takes a sip of Jason’s drink, which. Rude. “Did you crash just to see us?”

Jason snorts. “I’m here for intel. I thought a mark might attend.”

“Bruce only invites B-level corrupters to this shindig.”

“Bruce doesn’t know everything.”

Dick makes a vague, assenting noise and Jason raises an eyebrow. “That’s all I’m at liberty to concede,” Dick asserts solemnly, “according to section C, bylaw 4 of the Bruce’s Bitch Code.”

It’s more than a little annoying that Jason’s not quick enough to tamp down his smile. He’s about to ask Dick if he wants to bail early, maybe grab a burger and talk about the case, but he’s cut off by the sudden appearance of a beautiful, unfamiliar woman on his right. She has inquisitive brown eyes and dark hair that sweeps softly down the slope of her neck. Her fingers are loosely clasped around a glass of pink wine, but based on its level and the sharpness of her expression, she hasn’t taken a swallow of it all night.

“Who’s this, Dick?” she asks, tilting her head and examining Jason like he’s pinned insect. “Haven’t seen him around before.”

“Damian’s Au Pair,” Dick says, not missing a beat. He’s sporting his perfect Golden Boy smile, and when he speaks his voice is glossy and refined, like he knows he’s going to be quoted later. Jason surmises the woman is a reporter. “He’s new. And Russian.”

“Do svidaniya,” Jason intones, fixing her with a flat look.

“That means goodbye,” she says.

“I know.”

He slips away, subtly shaking Dick’s grasp from his shoulder. As he leaves he can hear Dick laughing and pointing some witty quip about Russian manners at his retreating figure. Jason doesn’t bother suppressing his grimace.

If he’s going to spend the rest of the night here, he and the bartender need to be on a first-name basis starting _now._

 

* * *

 

Bruce hasn’t seen Tim, Dick, or Damian in at least fifteen minutes and it’s making the back of his neck tingle slightly in warning. He knows Alfred would accuse him of being a hover father, or whatever the ridiculous turn of phrase was, but he’s painfully conscious of the fact that fifteen minutes is double the amount of time Damian needs to blow up half a city block.

He offers a mindless charming smile to the pretty woman hanging off his arm. Her name is something ridiculous like Tracilynn, and her family expects platinum treatment after giving a rather dismal amount to the foundation every year. He doesn’t feel bad about ignoring her as he takes up the far more important task of perusing every corner of the room for a single familiar mop of black hair. Find Dick and he’d find them all.

He clocks a gaggle of balding men with Rolexes at the bar, two of the waitstaff flirting as they clear plates, a woman in a dress that appears to be nothing more strategically knotted strands of Swarovski crystals, and—

And who should Bruce’s eyes fall on but Clark Kent, leaned up against a wall, glasses slipping down his nose, already looking at Bruce with a surreptitious smile.

“Excuse me,” he says dismissively, stepping away from Tracilynn perhaps hastier than he ought to, given the role he’s playing tonight. He extricates himself from the clusters of socialites with some difficulty, finding a relatively secluded edge of the room that still keeps Clark in his eye line.

“Fancy seeing you here,” Bruce says, voice barely a whisper, not audible to anyone in the surrounding radius.

Clark’s smile widens and he holds up his pen, as if in explanation. He doesn’t react further, just briefly glances down then looks back up at Bruce with mirthful blue eyes.

“You look absurd,” Bruce says frankly, eyeing his elbow patches in thinly veiled disdain. Clark lets out a soft laugh that Bruce can’t actually hear, but his memory conjures up the sound anyways. “Third-floor bathroom in the South Corridor. The one with the lock.”

Clark raises an eyebrow but dips his chin in a near imperceptible nod, raising his glass to polish off the dregs of his champagne. By the time he looks up, Bruce is already gone.

 

* * *

 

Each of them has a favorite Gargoyle.

Tim secretly thinks it says more about their personalities than a Myers-Briggs assignment ever could. Dick named his Bruce 2 because he claims it bears a striking resemblance, Damian likes the ugliest, gnarliest looking one attached to the roof, and Tim’s preference is simple— Doña Angelina has the best vantage point of the entire grounds.

(Jason likes the gargoyle with the softest, most frightened face, almost tucked into its concrete knees, even as its eyes are just as mean as the rest of them. None of them talk about it.)

“Oh, for _me_? Jay, you shouldn’t have.”

Jason’s quick, but not quicker than his older brother, and Dick snatches the cigarette out of his hand so fast that the lock of curls flopped over Jason’s forehead quivers slightly from the resulting rush of air.

Tim quietly sidles up on his left.

“Remember when I was newly back from the dead and didn’t give a damn about any of you? I miss that.”

“Me too!”

None of them can say exactly where Damian comes from, but one second Jason’s reaching for a second cigarette, and the next he has a maniacal ten-year-old clinging to his shoulders, trying to capture him a headlock.

“Christ, Damian, you’re pulling out my hair—”

“Not like you have that much to begin with!”

Tim snorts.

He and Dick watch in impartial interest as the two wrestle it out, Jason trying harder to pin Damian’s arms to his side than inflict damage of any kind. Tim thinks it’s funny that Jason puts so much work into pretending he still hates them all, but caves the second the stakes get higher than playground insults. That hasn't always been the case, of course, but his behavior has smoothed into something almost resembling parity these days. Tim, personally, is a massive fan.

“What do you want, _demon_?”

“I want you to stop slowly killing yourself and everyone on the grounds through secondhand smoke. It’s bad for you, it’s bad for us, and it’s bad for Titus!”

“Fine,” Jason grunts, extricating his limbs from Damian’s ironclad grip. “Fine. No more. You can have the whole pack.”

Jason shoves his hand into his pocket, then stares in bewilderment at what he’s retrieved. _Patch Kit!_ , the label proudly proclaims, _Stop Smoking Now!_

Tim reaches into his own jacket and supplies Jason’s cigarettes, holding them up in explanation as Dick dissolves into laughter off to Jason’s left.

“Oh my god,” Jason deadpans.

“No smoking,” Tim says sagely, and bumps Damian’s extended fist without breaking eye contact.

 

* * *

 

It’s been a full ten minutes of waiting in the agreed-upon third-floor bathroom after their conversation in the Great Hall. Bruce contemplates just leaving several times, growing weary of straightening his collar, reading the news on his phone, and eyeing the door every other minute like a restless adolescent.

He can’t really say why he doesn’t — just leave, that is — but half the answer comes in the form of Clark unceremoniously crashing through the mahogany double doors, glasses crooked on his nose.

“Sorry,” he breathes, flashing Bruce a dimpled smile as he fumbles with the lock. There is a patch of obvious pink on his white dress shirt. “I was coming— I mean, I started in this direction, like, forever ago, but I ran into a lady and I spilled wine on her dress, and she told me it was a Stella McCartney, and I—”

“Didn’t offer to pay for it,” Bruce cuts in, shaking his head slightly. “Tell me you didn’t offer to pay for it.”

Clark tips his chin up in that way that indicates he’s about to get Very Principled Very Quickly, and there’s no one in this world or the next who could stop him. “Well, it _was_ my fault, it’s the least I could do.”

“Do you even know how much a Stella McCartney _tote bag_ costs?”

“I’ll handle it in installments.”

“You’re absurd,” Bruce rolls his eyes, and— and he is certainly, unequivocally absurd with his wine-stained button down, Great Clips haircut, and dated shooting jacket, yet, against all mounting evidence to the contrary, he remains the only person Bruce is interested in looking at for the rest of the night. “How did you end up here? I thought you had a football match.”

“Got Peterson to swap with me.”

Bruce raises an eyebrow. “How’d you swing that?”

“Promised to cover the Metropolis City Council beat for the next three weeks.” Clark wrinkles his nose in distaste. “Painfully dry.”

Bruce turns this thought over in his mind and finds he’s entirely unsettled by the warmth in his chest at the extended consideration. “Why?”

It’s Clark’s turn to roll his eyes. “Why do you think?” He moves closer, slow and unhurried, like this is an evening just for them rather than a stolen moment in the eighth nicest bathroom of the manor.

“You’re going to regret it in a week,” Bruce intones, even as Clark steps into his space, places tentative hands on Bruce’s arms like he’s asking for permission.

“You know what?” Clark asks, moving his palms beneath the seams of Bruce’s suit jacket. “If that’s what you need to believe to shut up and enjoy this, then fine.”

“And what is _this_ , exactly?”

“Haven’t worked that out by now? Pay attention, Detective.”

Clark kisses the retort off his lips, and while Bruce would normally push him back in and get the last word in twisting stomach be damned, he finds all he can do today is relax against the wall. Maybe it’s that he’s playing Bruce Wayne this evening or that he wasn’t really expecting to see Clark at all, but something about the moment makes him indulge.

“I want you to stay,” Bruce says tersely, fingers curling in the cheap fabric of Clark’s suit jacket.

Clark’s eyes soften. “Dick and the rest of the kids are spending the night over, aren’t they?”

“Yes.”

“Then you know I can’t.”

“That doesn’t mean I don’t want you to.”

“Romantic,” Clark says, smiling crookedly.

“I think that’s overselling it,” Bruce drawls, leaning back against the cool marble wall as Clark crowds impossibly closer. “Didn’t your mother ever tell you? Guys like me only want one thing.”

A tinge of pink blooms on Clark’s cheeks, and he glances down, almost bashful, before leaning in for another kiss. Bruce keeps him close this time, maintaining a tight grip around the front of his jacket. Clark could easily break out of it, of course, but he doesn’t, which is kind of the point.

When Clark pulls away, he looks at Bruce like he wants to swallow him whole.

“How much time do we have before you need to get back out there?

“It’s not a precise science,” Bruce says mildly. “Fifteen minutes, maybe. Twenty at the max. Why?”

Clark looks surreptitiously behind him, as if checking that some interloper hasn’t broken the lock and wandered in completely unnoticed in the past six minutes, then places his hands on Bruce’s belt and drops slowly to his knees, looking up at Bruce through thick lashes like he’s just waiting for a ‘no’.

“Aren’t you technically on the clock right now?”

“Sh,” Clark reprimands, pulling deftly at the buckle with a smile that can only be described as youthfully arrogant. “I lied before. _This_ is the part where you shut up and enjoy it.”

For once, Bruce bites down his own retort, buries a hand in Clark’s hair, and obeys.

 

* * *

 

Damian is falling asleep.

He has been for the past hour and a half, keeping his little eyelids pried open through sheer will alone. Dick would find it more unnerving if he didn’t look so cute every time he was right on the edge of dozing off. Dick thinks it’s his nose, all adorable and button-like. He wonders dimly if Bruce’s nose ever looked like that.

“Getting tired, kiddo?”

“Don’t patronize me, Richard.”

They’re sitting on the most shadowy part of the balcony - Dick, Damian, Tim, and Jason. Dick doesn’t know if Jason remembers, but when he was a kid they sat up there for his first ever Wayne Gala and threw spitballs at people who didn’t tip the waitstaff.

Though they’d been all restless energy up on the roof, things seemed to have mellowed down now that they’re back inside. Dick doesn’t know what characterizes these moments of peace that fall between them, but they’re few and far between, important in a way the rest of them are still too young to understand.

“I wish I could un-know the Viennese waltz,” Tim mutters, the tail end of the sentence caught on a yawn. “I feel like it’s taking up a lot of brain space.”

“Makes you cool with the ladies,” Dick suggests.

Jason shakes his head. “No. It doesn’t. Don’t listen to him.”

Dick doesn’t quip back, only smiles a little and glances over at Damian, whose eyes are almost entirely closed. Titus is already all the way there, snoring softly, bowtie askew, head resting on Damian’s lap.

“Should just let yourself go to sleep, Dami.”

“I’m _awake_.”

He’s out cold ten minutes later, head tipped against Dick’s shoulder.

Dick’s about to carry him to bed when Tim, completely unprompted, says, “I think Bruce is seeing somebody.”

It takes every year he’s had of big brother training not to whip his head around and jostle Damian awake. Even Jason raises an eyebrow, glancing at Tim in his periphery.

Tim dips his shoulder in a casual kind of shrug. He’s slouched over in the kind of question-mark posture that would make Alfred wince. “He spends less time at home than usual. Doesn’t chase every single petty crime, leaves one or two things for the cops, if they’re positioned close. Generally acts like he has something more to come home to than an empty house. The other day, Dick made a pun, and he actually smiled.” Tim shivers, as if this was a truly haunting experience. “ _Smiled_.”

“Which pun was it?”

“ _That’s_ your question?”

“Okay, fine,” Dick corrects, “who do you think it is?”

“Don’t know,” Tim concedes, shaking his head. “I honestly thought— well. It’s someone who makes him…. Normal-er, right? With the smiling, and the occasionally going to bed before 8 in the morning?”

“So it can’t be any of the usual suspects,” Jason surmises, mouth tipped in a crooked smile. “Anyways, who cares? Bruce getting laid is probably a partial antidote for his terrible personality. Maybe he’ll be cooler now.”

“ _Please_ don’t talk about Bruce getting laid,” Tim shakes his head, expression crumpled in utter disgust. Jason laughs.

They fall silent again.

Dick looks for Bruce amidst the gaggle of tittering socialites below, though the search only lasts minutes before he catches sight of a pair of recognizably broad shoulders in a perfectly tailored Armani suit. Bruce has a half-empty drink in his hand and he’s talking to a woman dressed like a tiered cake, face frozen in perfectly artificial laughter.

And then—... and _then_.

Clark interjects. Dick doesn’t know how he didn’t notice the man’s presence earlier in the evening, but it’s unmistakably him, because he can see the cowlick and no one else would wear such a god-awful jacket to a Bruce Wayne party. He says something that makes the lady laugh and Bruce smile, then extends an expectant hand towards Bruce, eyes twinkling in a way that’s just the right side of teasing.

Bruce, to Dick’s tremendous surprise, actually takes the bait. And then they’re moving onto the floor, hand in hand, and dancing. The closer Dick surveys his expression, the more he’s certain that the slight smile on Bruce’s face, the amused glimmer in his eyes, is far more genuine than anyone who didn’t really know him would realize.

Dick glances at Tim and Jason, mouth hanging open slightly.

“You don’t think…” Tim starts, but he doesn’t finish the sentence. He’s staring at Clark and Bruce with bunched together eyebrows, like they’re a puzzle he can’t quite figure out how to start.

“I like Clark,” Jason says, voice sounding far away. “He bought me my first copy of Titus Andronicus.”

So that’s that, really.

 

* * *

 

“They’re here.”

Clark looks at him funny, a little furrow appearing between his brows. His hand slips lower on Bruce’s back, a gesture intended to soothe.

“Dick, Tim, Damian, even Jason,” Bruce explains, feeling a small prickle of satisfaction at Clark’s subsequent surprise. It isn’t exactly difficult to shock someone from the midwest, but Clark had been so smug over the course of the evening that the opportunity to nudge him off kilter was more than gratifying. “They’re here, right now. They’re watching.”

“I thought you said they’d left?”

Bruce shakes his head. “They must’ve come back.”

Clark sets his jaw, looking stubbornly resolved in a way that nearly makes Bruce roll his eyes. “I can talk to them, tell them I was just here as a friend. I mean, that’s probably what they’d think anyways, right? Why would they immediately assume—”

“I’ve known for hours,” Bruce interjects wryly, shaking his head. “The pianist plays the Ratatouille theme every twenty minutes. It’s Tim’s favorite movie.”

“Tim’s favorite movie is Ratatouille?”

“We saw it three times in theaters.”

The corner of Clark’s mouth tips in a hesitant smile, though a kind of stretched out confusion still animates his expression. “If you knew they were watching, then why did you…?”

Clark doesn’t finish the sentence. Bruce doesn’t press him to.

“Don’t read too much into it,” he says finally, voice sharper than he really means it to be. “You’re a spectacularly bad dancer, by the way.”

Clark smiles, and if it was physically possible for little hearts to pop up in his pupils, that would absolutely be happening right now. It should be sickening, and it is, a little bit, especially paired with the knowledge that Dick is going to be as obnoxious as humanly possible about the situation later on.

But Bruce is starting to think that all of _this—_  the half-eaten batcake on his bedside table, the smell of drugstore aftershave on his sheets, and Clark’s hand in his —makes it worth the pain.

 

* * *

 

Bruce sends Clark up to his room and retreats into the safety of the smaller kitchen on the grounds, waiting, perhaps not so patiently, for the remainder of his guests to pair up, file into their limos, and head back into the city. Bruce doesn’t so much mind the beginnings of parties or the middle, but the ending takes an excruciatingly long while, especially when it’s his house people are lingering in.

Well. Not just his house, he supposes, as he swings open the door to the second kitchen and finds his sons crowded around the wooden table in various states of disrepair.

Dick is holding Damian against his chest, his head tucked into the crook of Dick’s neck. He presses his finger to his lips and slowly ascends Alfred’s staircase, carefully avoiding the steps that creak and making certain not to jostle the snoozing child in his arms. If it was anyone but Dick holding him, Bruce is certain he’d be wide awake, kicking and scratching like a cornered cat.

As it is, he’s something nearing docile, believably passed out, trusting and gentle in a way he doesn’t allow himself to be around the rest of them. Not for the first time this week, Bruce thanks the higher powers that be for his eldest son.

“Something weird about that,” Tim mutters under his breath, eyes narrowed in suspicion.

“Normal brotherhood?” Jason asks, still folded over the table. “Or Damian acting like a human being?”

“He actually sleeps. Up until now, I thought he occasionally made a beeping noise and powered down.”

Jason’s mouth twitches into a smile before he tucks his head against his arms. Bruce tactfully does not mention the irony of Jason’s quip about ‘normal brotherhood’, considering the sheer number of ice cream cones Dick bought him during his tenure as Robin.

“Is that caffeinated?” Bruce asks instead, nodding at the mug in front of Tim.

Tim says ‘yes’ at the same time Alfred, materializing seemingly out of nowhere, says ‘no’. Tim whips around and fixes him with a look of utter betrayal.

The exchange is interrupted by Dick padding back down the stairs, but by the crazed glint in Tim’s eye, Bruce suspects it won’t be going away any time soon. For now, he turns his attention elsewhere.

“What’s wrong with you?” Bruce asks, raising an eyebrow at Jason’s hunched over, miserable frame. Jason lifts his head slightly so he can glare at Bruce through the curls flopped over his forehead.

“Master Jason is not feeling well,” Alfred says, gently placing a steaming mug in front of Jason.

Jason eyes it warily.  “Your bougie food poisoned me.”

Bruce examines the mug, and then places the back of his hand against Jason’s exposed forehead. “Not warm,” he assesses, the corner of his mouth tipped in a half-smile. “You didn’t eat the scallops, did you?”

“I don’t know what a scallop is,” Jason snaps.

Dick drops into the chair at the opposite end of the table, looking like he’s trying not to laugh. “It’s, like, fishy. Buttery. Kind of melt-in-your-mouth good.”

“You have a slight shellfish allergy,” Bruce says, shaking his head. “You can’t eat scallops.”

“How was _I_ supposed to know that?” Jason asks, batting Bruce’s hand away from his forehead. “Fuck off. I hate all of you.”

“Swear jar,” Tim says mildly, grinning. Jason lobs a cloth napkin at him.

“You should stay the night,” Bruce says, making eye contact with Alfred. “We’ll have the guest room set up.”

Jason leans back in his chair, arms folded over his stomach. He’s intentionally not looking at Bruce, eyes narrowed as he stares determinedly at a spot on the table. He looks young— younger than he’s looked in a long, long time.

“Whatever,” he says finally. “I can help you, Alfred.”

Alfred makes a small, dismissive tutting noise, promptly disappearing in the direction of the staircase. Jason rises shakily from his chair and plods after him. Bruce makes a silent note to send some cut up ginger to the room in an hour or so. Jason will be too tired to make an ordeal out of it.

He looks back at Tim and Dick, who are both already looking at him.

They haven’t said anything yet. It’s strategic, Bruce assumes. They’ll have already discussed when and how to divulge their newfound knowledge to leverage the most possible humiliation. Bruce only has himself to blame—he, after all, is likely the one who made them this way.

“Will we be having anyone over for breakfast tomorrow?” Dick asks airily, sitting in a ludicrous, pretzel-like position that can’t possibly be comfortable.

“Yeah,” Tim agrees, eyes narrowed. “Will we?”

Bruce absently straightens his cufflinks, expression impervious in a manner they must be accustomed to by now. “If you have something to say, by all means come out with it.”

Dick just shrugs a little and, by some miracle of flexibility, fishes his phone out of his pocket and starts scrolling through a slew of notifications with pointed nonchalance. Tim continues to stare but stays entirely silent. They’ll have to have an actual talk about that, later— he suspects Dick’s too old to actually care who he’s sleeping with, but the same certainly isn’t true for Damian, and perhaps that applies to Tim as well.

“Only decaf past eleven,” he tells Tim idly.

“Yeah, yeah.”

 

* * *

 

Clark, looking ridiculous wrapped in a too-small Wayne Enterprises t-shirt and approximately four goose-feather comforters, is huddled up in the corner of Bruce’s bed watching Masterpiece Classic on one of the iPads. It’s a familiar scene. Since the start of this relationship he has learned far more about Downton Abbey than he ever previously planned on knowing.

He pauses at that word, turns it over in his mind. Relationship. He supposes there’s no getting out of it now, not when Dick knows and will inevitably be making puns about it in the very near future.

“How did it go?” Clark asks, barely looking up from the screen when Bruce enters.

“You didn’t listen?”

“Not my business.”

“Doesn’t usually stop you.”

Clark isn’t as easily distracted as he was during the first years of their partnership. He simply rolls his eyes, clicks off the iPad, and tries again, poking his head a little further above the absolute mass of blankets he’s twisted up in. “How did it go?”

Bruce shakes his head, stripping out of his clothes with practiced, methodical efficiency. “Nothing’s ‘gone’ yet. They’re waiting. Well—Tim’s waiting, I don’t think Jason or Dick particularly care.”

“Is that a relief? Are we happy about that?”

“You can feel however you like about it.”

“Don’t be difficult.”

Bruce grunts in acknowledgment, sliding beneath one of the blankets and stretching out along his half of the bed. He supposes they’re not going to have sex again, which is fine, except that they’ve never spent the night together and not had sex. For a moment it feels daunting and significant.

Clark gingerly places the iPad onto Bruce’s nightstand and rolls over onto his side, inquisitive blue eyes fixed on Bruce’s profile. “What are you thinking about?”

“How much I wish we were asleep right now.”

“Okay. I can be asleep.”

This, predictably, lasts about eight seconds.

“It’s just that—”

 “ _Clark—_ ”

“I want to make sure you’re not freaking out,” he rushes to say, before Bruce can interrupt him again. “About this, about— about people knowing. You’re not freaking out, are you?”

Bruce tilts his head to look at Clark, whose cowlick makes him look all of twenty-four years old, a picture completed by the fact he’s chewing his lip a little in anxiety. Christ. A god, in his bed, nervously awaiting Bruce’s confirmation of their relationship status.

“Stranger than fiction,” he mutters.

Clark frowns. “What?”

“Nothing. We’re fine,” Bruce assures, and, because he anticipates it’s not all that assuring, leans over to kiss Clark once, gentle and chaste, something right off Masterpiece Classic. “And I don’t mind if it’s actually you who’s freaking out.”

“Really?”

“Yes, I think that’s fine. Now please go to bed.”

“Okay.” Clark says, and tosses a heavy leg over Bruce’s waist. Bruce places an idle hand on his thigh.

“I love you,” Clark murmurs, eyes closed. His cheeks are flushed and his hair is tousled. He looks like what would happen if Michelangelo could 3D print people on a WayneTech computer. This is a more romantic thought than it sounds.

Bruce doesn’t say it, but it’s just as embarrassing that he knows Clark can hear it hanging in the air long after the lights have dimmed.

_I love you, too._

**Author's Note:**

> catch me on tumblr @ quidhitch


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